Seiko’s Stealthiest Watch Ever Was Designed for Literal Ninjas

Shuriken? Check. Katana? Check. Tool watch? Check.

Published February 11, 2025

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Seiko recently completed its second Incredibly Specialized Watch Exhibition, where the Japanese watchmaker sets its designers loose to create, um, incredibly specialized watches.

What is an incredibly specialized watch, you may be wondering? Well, it’s exactly what it sounds like: a tool watch made for a ridiculously specific purpose.

The watches are concepts, not actual products, so the designers don’t really need to consider any practical limitations in their designs. As a result, this year’s event resulted in watches designed for Santa Claus, vampires and more.

Some of the designs are pretty out there, but one of the more realistic creations — and arguably the coolest — is a Seiko watch designed for real-life ninjas.

a seiko ninja watch — If ninjas wore watches, they might have looked like this.

Ninja, Ninja, Watch!

While mostly recognized in Western society thanks to their prevalence in pop culture, ninjas did really exist in feudal Japan, where they acted as spies and assassins. Just like their fictional counterparts, these real-life ninjas operated in the shadows and relied on their stealthiness to conduct their covert missions.

Ninjas are associated with equipment such as shuriken (throwing stars) and katana blades, but watches were not among their arsenal — mainly because they didn’t exist yet. There are myriad ways in which ninjas were believed to have told time, from reading a cat’s eyes to monitoring the width of their nostrils to letting the stars be their guide.

a seiko ninja watch seen from the back — The caseback, which remains hidden while in use, has the only splash of color on the watch.

Obviously, none of these methods were terribly reliable, so Seiko designer Yuya Suganuma — who heads up the brand’s Seiko 5 Sports division — wondered what sorts of features a watch built for ninjas would require.

To start, the watch needs to go unseen in the dark conditions in which ninjas operate, which means the case, dial, hands and indices are all matte black, rendering the watch basically invisible at night. The watch also foregoes any lume, as a glowing watch would immediately give away the wearer’s location.

So how, then, does one read the time while wearing the watch in the dark?

Feel It Out

The Seiko Ninja Watch is read by touch. The dial’s indices are large and three-dimensional, and the hour and minute hands are easily distinguishable by touch thanks to their vastly different shapes and sizes. To tell the time, simply slide open the hinged cover and feel the hands and indices; something that can be done without even looking at the watch with a little practice.

Suganuma envisions two interchangeable options for the hinged cover. One is a crystal that allows you to still read the time visually like any other watch. The other is a more mission-appropriate metal cover that’s designed to protect the watch from significant shocks. The metal cover would also be engraved with the family crest of whatever house the ninja serves.

two seiko ninja watches — There are two options for the hinged cover, one crystal and one metal.

The caseback of the watch features a red shuriken decoration for inspiration — the only splash of color on the watch — along with a “spell” written in kanji that’s designed to calm the wearer’s mind.

The strap is also unique and draws inspiration from the wrapped gloves used in traditional Japanese archery. It’s made of deerskin leather and consists of a protective cuff and a long strap that wraps around to secure the cuff.

Not only does this make the watch look like something a ninja would wear, but the strap’s length offers increased versatility, allowing the ninja to wear the watch somewhere other than their wrist if desired, such as on their ankle or upper arm.

a seiko ninja watch on a persons wrist — The wrapped deerskin strap draws inspiration from a yumi-gake; a wrapped glove used in Japanese archery.

Like the rest of the watches created by Seiko’s designers for the Incredibly Specialized Watch Exhibition, the Ninja Watch will likely never see the light of day as an actual product. But in all honesty, it would probably be the easiest one for Seiko to produce if the brand does decide to make any of these watches a reality.

There are no crazy complications or bizarre timekeeping requirements for the Ninja Watch. All you really need is a dustproof dial and you’re basically in business.

Now, if only there were still some ninjas around to act as a customer base…